Bishop slams shameful killings

by Brian Dooley BISHOP Cahal Daly of Down and Connor decried the sectarian killings of last weekend as "mortal sins of murder", and condemned "those who hide the guns, those who freely and knowingly provide the "safe houses", and those who provide information about the victim's address and movements".
The outburst came at the end of a week which rated as one of the worst for violence in the last 20 years in Ulster.
"In the last three days alone", continued the bishop, "we have had four women left widowed and sixteen children left orphaned".
This latest spate of sectarian murders has come on the eve of the Protestant marching season. traditionally a time of tension in the community. Bishop Daly accused Loyalist sectarian killers of "striking fanatically but purposefully at any Catholic whom their gun gang could identify and reach".
The bishop spoke of the motiveless murder of Danny O'Connor, the father of four, who was shot outside his home last Thursday, and claimed that Mr O'Connor was only the latest in a list of some 400 sectarian murders.
"The vast majority of them have been Catholics, murdered simply because they were Catholics", he said.
At the funeral of Mr O'Connor, Fr Danny Curran also attacked the gunmen from both sides of the community, and said that it did not need "these so-called defenders plying their trade." He continued by addressing the gunmen directly. "You insult. You shame us", he said.
Mr O'Connor's widow, who witnessed her husband,s murder, has vowed never to return to her Springfield Road home again and has said that she cares nothing for the North of Ireland and wants out of it. Reports claimed that the UVF was responsible for Mr O'Connor's murder and that it had been carried out in response to an increase in IRA activity in the area.
Bishop Daly was speaking from St Paul's Church in the Falls Road on Sunday after the two Catholics killed had been buried at the end of a week which he described as "a week of evil and shame". He also
referred to the deaths of two Protestants who had been killed by IRA gunmen, RUC Sergeant Robert Guthrie and UDR Private John Tracey.
"It has been proven by experience", he said, "that the IRA do not carry out their operations arbitrarily. There is a steel-cold purpose and a calculated political point in every operation".
The bishop went on to condemn the poriticar readers of the IRA, and asked whether the provocation of "sectarian strife" was now part of their strategy, and further demanded "whether exposing Catholic communities to attack is part of their tactic".
Bishop Daly also wondered how "people who presumably came from Catholic families and passed through Catholic schools could have so rejected the Christian values in which they were reared as to become capable of doing such deeds".
The bishop's remarks were strongly attacked by the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, Ian Paisley, who accused the bishop of "hypocrisy" over his criticism of Loyalist leaders.
Bishop Daly had denounced clergymen who "might cause people to have a false or confused conscience about the sinfulness of the 'armed struggle". Rev Paisley noted that the bishop was not elected by anyone, and claimed: "He is no better than John Hume (SDLP Member of Parliament for Foyle), who preferred to talk to the IRA army council rather than elected politicians".